Happy birthday, Jo. Happy birthday, John....

I suppose looking back is in the nature of birthdays.

And maybe more so, as you get older.

I know that today, when I am 72, it’s what I want to do.

Look back on my younger self and say hello.

Hello, John.

I don’t know how old you were then, Maybe 19?

You had a lot going on in your life: a lot of happiness. A lot of misery.

The misery came from wanting to wear girls’ clothes and being too frightened and ashamed to express that and not having the means to understand or even begin to accept it.

I can’t describe myself as “trans” back then not because it wasn’t true but because that word was not in common usage back then (in 1970), I never knew it, so I simply had not the words to make sense of myself.

And I thought I was completely alone.

We never spoke of it, me and my friends, though looking back I wonder if we ever could have done.

It needed to be buried so deep, somehow.

But if we had been able to speak about it, it would have made such a difference.

I spoke about it to Susie when we fell in love because I had to. I couldn’t lie to her.

But we both lived under the shadow of prejudice and shame.

I couldn’t tell my children when they were young because it would have been wrong to expect them to keep it secret and if it had come out there was a real risk they would have been ostracised and bullied at school.

It took me 30 years from this picture to come out to my friends: and then a few years after that before I was able to tell a Playwrights’ Conference in 2004:

“I’m not an English playwright, or a Scottish playwright, but a European playwright.

And I’m not a male playwright or a female playwright, but a trans playwright”.

And I’m proud of those words and stand by them still.

But by then Susie was dying and it was too late for us to stand together openly in our love and face the world.

There is so much I wish for you, dear John.

I wish you hadn’t had to suffer so much shame.

I wish there’s been a drag scene then you could have been part of and made your artistic home.

But there wasn’t and you couldn’t and you did the best you could.

I don’t want to seem as if I have regrets. I don’t.

As I said in EVE:

“Many of us disdain our former selves.

Many of us say: that wasn’t me.

I want to remove him from the record.

But i won’t do that.

I’m proud of you.

Dear John.

Proud you lived through all your pain

And still loved someone. And were loved in return.

Proud you and she brought up your amazing daughters.

Proud you found your voice and learnt to write.

Proud of all those plays.

Proud of the years of tears and laughter.”

I so deeply hope young people never have to suffer the isolation and shame that I went through.

And I don’t understand why some feminists and some christians think they are improving the lot of women and humanity by expressing their hatred towards us.

Still less do I understand the masculine urge to war. I’d fondly imagined that humanity had got beyond that.

That the solidarity and mutual support that we need in the face of this pandemic and the looming ecological crisis would have brought us all together more.

Perhaps in the end they will.

I can see that time coming, though I may not live to experience it.

One lesson that I’ve learned from my work is that I seem to be consistently ahead of my time.And I’m proud of that too. Even though it leaves me marginalised…

Because I write plays for a post capitalist theatre that doesn’t yet exist.

But I hope one day it will.

And I hope I’ll have done something to bring it about.

And what helps me is the knowledge I’ve gained through this life long struggle against prejudice: that in the end friendship is stronger than hate.

And so, of course, is love.